Space

Real-Time Speech Blog

Starts with obligatory paen to the dedicated people at NASA. Some of it is nonsense, of course–“bold,” and “risk takers” hasn’t described NASA personnel for many years, but it’s obligatory nonetheless.

Now he’s using the Lewis and Clark analogy. Not too bad Going through the litany of benefits from space exploration, including weather, GPS, communications, imaging processing, etc.

Hyping Shuttle and station, talking about space telescopes and probes, and finding water on other planets, and current searches for life beyond earth with robots. Pointing out that we haven’t been further than four hundred miles from earth in thirty years.

“expand a human presence across our solar system.”

Finish space station by 2010, and use it to focus on long-term effects of space on humans. Return Shuttle to flight ASAP. It will be used to complete ISS assembly, and then retired in 2010.

Develop new spacecraft, CEV–first mission by 2014. That means a gap of four years when we don’t have a government vehicle for manned spaceflight.

Return to the moon by 2020, with initial robotic missions in 2008. Now he’s saying 2015 for manned mission, so maybe the 2020 date is for a lunar base.

Talking about moon as base for deep space missions, including lunar resources for propellants. It will be used as a learning experience for Mars missions. We need to send people to really explore the planets.

“Human beings are headed into the cosmos.”

“…a great and unifying mission for NASA…”

Commission of private and public-sector experts to figure out how to implement it. Pete Aldridge to head it. Lousy choice–we need someone who’s less steeped in government programs.

“We choose to explore space…”

[Speech over]

OK, no big surprises, other than fleshing out dates. Nice speech, but it really is picking up where Apollo left off in terms of goals. In fact, it’s exactly the same goals laid out by Spiro Agnew during the Nixon administration, which was promptly shot down in the press and Congress. It’s also the same goals that his father laid out on July 20, 1989. It’s not at all clear to me what’s going to be different this time.

Listening to it, NASA was clearly given not only the lead, but the sole responsibility for this–there was no mention of private activities in space, or how they might play a role, if for nothing else, getting stuff into LEO. My disappointment of last week is confirmed–there’s little hint of new thinking in the administration how to approach space policy.

However, for as long as it lasts, it is nice to have as national policy that “humans beings are headed into the cosmos.” It may at least provide a rudder for activities across the federal government, not just at NASA, but at the FAA and other places. I continue to believe that ultimately this program will not get humans into the cosmos, at least not in any large way. If the schedule laid out by the president holds, I won’t be at all surprised to see the first NASA expedition to the moon in 2015 greeted by the concierge at the Club Med Luna.

[one more point]

Jay Manifold has already laid out a “triple-constraint” program summary.

[Update]

I’ve gathered some more-coherent thoughts in the next post.

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A “Libertarian Spacehound”?

Stanley Kurtz has responded to my response to his column.

I want to clarify. This happens often, and it’s forgivable in his case, because he’s probably read very little of my writing and is working from a small sample, but I don’t advocate a “libertarian” approach to space, if by that one means no government funding or involvement. (Other people have less of an excuse for continual oversimplification and misstatement of my positions.)

I would consider such an approach preferable to the current one, but certainly not optimal in terms of opening that frontier. History indicates that governments working intelligently (and often unintelligently) with private interests have always opened new frontiers, and space will be no different in that regard. My position is that the balance of our current approach, which is more socialistic and state-enterprise than even the Soviet Union was (they had more competition among their design bureaus than we do among our overconsolidated aerospace contractors) has to be amended, not that government has no role.

I’m simultaneously thrilled to see so much public discussion of space issues, and (again, not to single out Stanley, or even include him in this group) so much ignorance of the fundamentals, and repetition of flawed and failed arguments about it, which is why I’ll continue to blog on the subject as events develop and I have time.

But once more, the issue isn’t space activities versus none, or NASA versus private industry or no one, or robots versus people, or moon versus Mars–we have to frame this discussion in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish, and that goes beyond “science,” “exploration,” and “missions.” Until we’ve done so (and hopefully reached some sort of national consensus on that–something that hasn’t occurred since the early sixties), the prospects for useful discussion, or fruitful policy output, remain bleak.

Uncategorized

A “Libertarian Spacehound”?

Stanley Kurtz has responded to my response to his column.

I want to clarify. This happens often, and it’s forgivable in his case, because he’s probably read very little of my writing and is working from a small sample, but I don’t advocate a “libertarian” approach to space, if by that one means no government funding or involvement. (Other people have less of an excuse for continual oversimplification and misstatement of my positions.)

I would consider such an approach preferable to the current one, but certainly not optimal in terms of opening that frontier. History indicates that governments working intelligently (and often unintelligently) with private interests have always opened new frontiers, and space will be no different in that regard. My position is that the balance of our current approach, which is more socialistic and state-enterprise than even the Soviet Union was (they had more competition among their design bureaus than we do among our overconsolidated aerospace contractors) has to be amended, not that government has no role.

I’m simultaneously thrilled to see so much public discussion of space issues, and (again, not to single out Stanley, or even include him in this group) so much ignorance of the fundamentals, and repetition of flawed and failed arguments about it, which is why I’ll continue to blog on the subject as events develop and I have time.

But once more, the issue isn’t space activities versus none, or NASA versus private industry or no one, or robots versus people, or moon versus Mars–we have to frame this discussion in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish, and that goes beyond “science,” “exploration,” and “missions.” Until we’ve done so (and hopefully reached some sort of national consensus on that–something that hasn’t occurred since the early sixties), the prospects for useful discussion, or fruitful policy output, remain bleak.

Uncategorized

A “Libertarian Spacehound”?

Stanley Kurtz has responded to my response to his column.

I want to clarify. This happens often, and it’s forgivable in his case, because he’s probably read very little of my writing and is working from a small sample, but I don’t advocate a “libertarian” approach to space, if by that one means no government funding or involvement. (Other people have less of an excuse for continual oversimplification and misstatement of my positions.)

I would consider such an approach preferable to the current one, but certainly not optimal in terms of opening that frontier. History indicates that governments working intelligently (and often unintelligently) with private interests have always opened new frontiers, and space will be no different in that regard. My position is that the balance of our current approach, which is more socialistic and state-enterprise than even the Soviet Union was (they had more competition among their design bureaus than we do among our overconsolidated aerospace contractors) has to be amended, not that government has no role.

I’m simultaneously thrilled to see so much public discussion of space issues, and (again, not to single out Stanley, or even include him in this group) so much ignorance of the fundamentals, and repetition of flawed and failed arguments about it, which is why I’ll continue to blog on the subject as events develop and I have time.

But once more, the issue isn’t space activities versus none, or NASA versus private industry or no one, or robots versus people, or moon versus Mars–we have to frame this discussion in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish, and that goes beyond “science,” “exploration,” and “missions.” Until we’ve done so (and hopefully reached some sort of national consensus on that–something that hasn’t occurred since the early sixties), the prospects for useful discussion, or fruitful policy output, remain bleak.

Uncategorized

That Would Be New

The administration says that the new space initiative won’t cost that much. They at least seem to have the talking points down:

Treasury Secretary John Snow told an ABC News program Sunday said that any new space initiative would be undertaken “within a framework of fiscal responsibility.” In a separate interview Sunday on CNN, Commerce Secretary Don Evans said that any program would be “within a responsible fiscal budget.”

Gee, that would make it unique among all federal programs with this administration.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!